


Runaways

by Lady_in_Red



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Infidelity, Light Angst, Mild Smut, Second Chances, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: Ten years after they last spoke, Jaime texts Brienne a single word: RUN.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 28
Kudos: 348





	Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> So yes, this a "Run" AU, but unlike the HBO series, we'll skip the police subplot. Sorry if you were hoping a certain queen might fall on something sharp.

Brienne is standing in a hotel room in her wedding gown when she types  _ RUN  _ into a text, and sends it winging across the miles. 

He doesn’t answer. 

* * *

Jaime is on stage when the text comes through.

His phone is backstage, in Cersei’s hand. Her eyes narrow at the sight of Brienne’s name, the laughing photo of her stored in his contacts. 

She deletes it, and a savage, secret smile curves her lips every time she thinks of it for years afterward. 

* * *

Brienne is sitting in her air-conditioned minivan in a parking lot, smoking a cigarette instead of doing hot yoga with the other neighborhood moms at the overpriced yoga studio next to the juice bar. 

In an hour she’ll have to go home, to let in the contractor to finish Hyle’s man cave in the basement. She’ll wait for the school bus to drop off Alys, have a glass of wine while she cooks dinner and probably another glass with dinner, and lie awake late into the night praying to the Crone for wisdom. 

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. The contractor must be early. She pulls it out, already muttering curses about the idiot Hyle hired because he was cheap. 

_ RUN. _

Her fingers fly over the screen in answer.  _ RUN. _

An hour later, she’s walking through airport security.

* * *

Jaime is still a little drunk as he walks through King’s Square station, looking for the platform for the line to Winterfell by way of Riverrun. His shoulder aches from where the hair dryer hit him last night. Cersei screamed at him as she threw it, told him to get out, to never come back, but he doesn’t actually think she meant it. She thought he’d fall to his knees, as he always had, and beg her forgiveness. Any other day, he might have. 

But when he woke up this morning, he didn't want to go back to her. Instead he reached ten years into the past and texted Brienne, and by some miracle she replied. 

So he ran. 

He spent the whole train ride between Oldtown and King’s Landing in the bar car, watching texts from Cersei pile up. She demanded that he come back. She loved him. She needed him as she never had before. Before long, she hated him. She never wanted to see him again. 

He turned off his phone after that. 

Jaime gets on the train at the rear and keeps walking, unsteady and starting to feel queasy, looking for a familiar shock of flaxen hair. He’s halfway through the train before he starts to wonder if she would really come. 

* * *

It doesn’t hit her, what she’s doing, what she’s done, until she’s running down the platform, the train stretching ahead of her, engines cycling up, the signs overhead flashing “Train departing.”

They were drunk when they made this plan, an escape hatch for all their shitty future life choices. She never actually thought they would do it.

Running away from home. It’s absurd. But she gets on the train just before it starts to move, and drops into a seat alone, heart pounding, flushed and breathing hard. She laughs, softly, as the train clears the station and starts to pick up speed on its way out of King’s Landing. 

Her phone vibrates, and she pulls it out of her pocket only to glance at the screen.

_ where are you  _

_ you left Alys alone  _

_ why the fuck aren’t you answering _

_ this isn’t funny get your ass home _

Brienne can picture his face. Annoyed. Then angry. Then cold. He would punish her for weeks when she went back.

If she went back.

The thought makes her smile. 

She’s still smiling when Jaime slides into the seat across from her.

* * *

  
  
Her hair is longer, messy waves of flax and moonlight. Her lips are bitten, her cheeks flushed, and she’s smiling. That smile punches him right in the gut. 

She’s here. 

“Hey,” he says, suddenly breathless.

“Hey,” she answers, laughter in her throaty voice. Her eyes are still the bluest thing he’s ever seen. She’s wearing dark grey yoga pants, bright blue sneakers, a fitted shirt made of some slippery, high-performance material in a stormy grey-blue, and a running jacket. She looks like she walked right out of the gym and came straight to him. Maybe she did.

She stretches out a hand across the table between them. “I’m Brienne,” she says, a twinkle in her eye. “Where are you headed?” They played this game a few times in college, meeting up at a party, pretending to be strangers, finding a dark corner to kiss and grope before heading back to her apartment or his. 

He takes her hand, warm and firm and her fingers just slightly calloused. “Jaime. I’m going to Riverrun. You?”

She squeezes his hand before releasing him. “Oh, I don’t know. I might go all the way.” 

“To Winterfell?” That had been their plan. All the way north to their old stomping grounds. It’s a long ride, several days last time Jaime checked. He didn’t even look when he booked the ticket today, and he didn’t dare book the second leg of the trip, just in case she didn’t show.

Brienne shrugs. “Why not?” 

A thousand reasons why not are stacking up on his phone, no doubt. Booking agents and venue managers and marketing people and his publisher, all asking what the fuck he’s doing. 

“Why not?” he echoes. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, only that he’s doing it with her. 

* * *

He’s been drinking, and he’s not very good at hiding it. He’s tired too, dark circles under his mossy green eyes. All that is familiar enough, she knew him in his college days after all. But he’s grown up. His shoulders are a bit broader, his hair shorter and his jaw sporting the kind of stubble that’s intentional rather than lazy. 

Something happened to make him text her, but she won’t ask. Not yet. Right now this is fun. This is not precisely real.

And if Jaime is a mirage from her past, she wants to stay in the fantasy as long as possible. 

“Do you want a drink?” he asks.

It’s after five, by now she usually has a glass of wine in her hand. She starts thinking about it around three, whenever Alys comes home and starts slamming doors and cupboards, angry at everyone but most especially Brienne. 

Brienne hasn’t thought about a drink all day. She shakes her head. “Something to eat?” she suggests instead. He has a hungry look about him. 

Jaime nods. “Sure. Let’s go.” He stands and offers her his hand. 

Brienne takes it and follows him down the aisle, their fingers still tangled together. 

The dining car isn’t quite full yet, they have a booth to themselves. The food is only passable, but she didn’t have to cook it, so Brienne eats it happily enough. Jaime shovels in food like he hasn’t eaten all day. Perhaps he hasn’t. He was never very good at basic routines or paying attention to the time. 

His clothes are obviously expensive, but rumpled. He once confessed that he put on whatever was lying on the chair in his room and never gave much thought to how it got there. 

“Where were you? When you texted?” Brienne asks, suddenly wondering if he came as far as she did to catch this train.

Jaime grimaces a little. Perhaps she’s not the only one less than eager to share how they ended up here. “Oldtown,” he finally says. “You?”

“Storm’s End.” This is when she should tell him she’s married. She doesn’t. 

“I saw you had a TED talk? And a book?” He’s a life coach, something that made her laugh, bitterly, when she first heard it. Jaime Lannister is gorgeous, rich, and had every advantage, and he was still an absolute human disaster when she knew him. The thought of him telling others how to live is beyond ridiculous. 

Jaime looks down at his hands. “Did you read it?” 

“No.” She hadn’t wanted to taint her memories of him. 

“Good. Don’t.” There’s an edge to his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago. 

Brienne pushes away her plate. Maybe she should have run a search on him, before she so eagerly threw away her life. Her phone vibrates again, and she slips it out of her pocket to glance down at the screen.

_ tarly was right you r a stupid bitch _

Something knotted deep inside her tugs, pulling painfully tight, and then it loosens. Every time Hyle cut her down, every time he turned off all the lights when they had sex, every time he let Alys walk all over her, it all unspools and falls away. 

She looks back at Jaime. He’s still a mess, that’s written all over his face. But there’s heat in his eyes, hunger in the way he licks his lips as he looks at her. Need. Hyle never looked at her like that. She’s missed that look. 

Her mouth dries, and suddenly she is so thirsty she can’t stand it. “I changed my mind. Let’s get that drink.”

* * *

The bar car is all dark wood and red leather, it almost feels like the library back at college. All that’s missing is the books. Brienne’s face is rosy and her eyes glassy in the warm glow of the lamp bolted to their table. Sometime around their fourth drink, Manhattans for him and Palomas for her, she rises on unsteady legs and says she needs to use the restroom. 

Jaime watches her go, admiring the tight curve of her ass as she sways and stumbles down the aisle toward the door. 

A phone vibrates, and he picks his up from the table. Both phones have been facedown on the table since their second drink, vibrating occasionally. Cersei is likely already hiring thugs to track him down and drag him back to Oldtown. 

But his screen shows no new messages since the last time he cleared his notifications. 

Brienne’s phone vibrates again, and Jaime isn’t a good enough man to ignore it. He picks it up, taps the button to light the screen. She hasn’t looked in awhile. Text notifications march down her screen.

_ tracked your phone _

_ canceled your cards _

_ don't bother coming back your shit's in the trash _

The texts are from Hyle Hunt. The name is vaguely familiar, but Jaime can’t place it. He swipes away the notifications. Brienne doesn’t need to see any of that shit. But that reveals her lockscreen. It’s a photo of Brienne with a plain-faced man and a girl with wavy blonde hair and the same pug nose as the man. 

She has a family. 

* * *

  
  
Jaime is tense when she gets back. It’s funny how easily she can still see that, after so long apart. Being with him is like sliding a key into an old lock. It sticks here and there, the lock doesn’t turn quite so easily as it once did, but all the parts still fit together.

She used to know exactly how to ease that tension, how to soothe away that line between his brows. Back then he only needed a drink or her hand on his dick to forget whatever was bothering him. Drinking clearly wasn’t working tonight. 

“I booked a room, in the sleeping car,” she blurts out. Brienne couldn’t resist him back then and she still can’t now. This morning, when she woke up next to Hyle, feels far away.

Jaime’s drink is halfway to his mouth. He hesitates, but the mocking comment she expects never comes. He tosses back the rest of the liquid in one gulp. He sets the glass down deliberately. “Can I walk you to your room?” 

There are four cars between the bar and the sleeper, but Brienne could not say what was in any of them. Before they’ve left the bar car, Jaime rests his hand on the small of her back, and keeps it there as they move through the increasingly quiet train. The few passengers Brienne notices don’t even glance at them. That’s new. Back in college, people always did a double take seeing them together, touching in the familiar, casual way that lovers do. 

She digs her ticket out of her purse, finds the number of her room, and leads Jaime to it. The door slides open easily, and Brienne steps inside. Jaime tries to follow and bangs right into her with a grunt muffled by her hair. 

The room is miniscule, not quite on the scale of an airplane bathroom but not far off. There’s a bunk bed in front of her, a single, with another above it, both beds floating in front of the windows. She can see herself reflected in the dark glass, Jaime a fuzzy shape behind her. There’s a jumpseat and some shelving to her left, a tiny stall to her right with a pocket door and a toilet inside. A shower room, she vaguely recalls from the description when she bought the ticket. 

She shuffles to the left, pushing up the jump seat until there’s a tiny space to stand, and Jaime comes in behind her.

From the way he skeptically eyes the room, she suspects he has closets bigger than this. 

He turns and slides the door closed, carefully tucking the curtain around the windows so no one in the corridor can see them. He thumbs the lock closed with a loud click. And then he turns back around and leans against the door. 

She can barely breathe, they’re so close, and there’s no space to move, nowhere to hide. Brienne isn’t even sure she could sit on the lower bunk without hitting her head. 

“So, this is …” Jaime trails off. He never was very good at false pleasantries. 

“About a million times worse than my dorm room,” Brienne finishes glumly. 

“No,” he laughs. “Your dorm room smelled like hockey gear. Although I think your bed was bigger then.” Jaime smiles, warm and so achingly familiar, and the crease between his brows finally smooths away. 

She wants to crawl inside his skin and hide there, his warmth and his heartbeat her entire world. So she surges forward and kisses him. 

* * *

Jaime is an asshole. He always has been. He can’t help noticing how different Brienne is, how much stronger, and yet far gentler than Cersei ever was. He loved that about Brienne, how nothing in her reactions was feigned, nothing was a performance. She was real and solid and when she looked at him, she saw  _ Jaime, _ not Tywin Lannister’s son.

Her hands are surer, demanding as they pull him close. Her kiss is harder, more teeth than tongue, but just as sweet as ever. It’s so tempting to fall back into her, to lose himself in her just like the old days. Every time they were together, the world just fucking disappeared. It was a relief to focus only on her. 

It’s harder now to focus. The whole room is gently swaying, the lights of a passing town flickering in the windows. The train hums and he shouldn’t be able to feel their speed, but he can. They’re falling, Brienne pulling him down into the shadows of the lower bunk, on top of her. Her mouth is soft and wet and greedy for him, and his hands fall into their old patterns without conscious thought, sneaking under the hem of her shirt and thumbing her nipple to make her gasp. Her legs wrap around his hips, and that’s all he needs. Brienne is here, and she wants him. Nothing else matters. 

Jaime nips at her throat and she winces. They were good at this, once they had a bit of practice. The awkwardness faded, the innocence he found so appealing somehow never quite leaving her no matter what they did together. But she’s not the one who likes that. She’s not the one who likes to fuck still mostly dressed, who always pushed him away the second they were done. Brienne liked spontaneity and skin and laughter and cuddling afterward. 

“Take off your pants,” Brienne whispers against his mouth, her own hands already moving between them to start pulling down her yoga pants. 

He does it, shucking out of his jeans at lightning speed despite the cramped conditions. He settles between her thighs again, rutting against her while they kiss. “You feel so good,” he mumbles between kisses. “I could do this all night.” 

She laughs a little and grinds harder against him. “No, you couldn’t.”

He laughs too, because she’s right. Jaime is not blessed with patience. Once he decided he wanted her, he launched an all-out charm offensive and that was, in retrospect, often far more offensive than charming. But Brienne fell for him anyway. 

She slips a hand into his boxer-briefs, and Jaime moans into her mouth. Her hands. The Smith fashioned those hands to make him that happiest damned man in the world, Jaime is certain. 

He opens his eyes, not remembering when he closed them. Brienne. She’s concentrating, biting her lip as she works his cock with one hand. He should stop her. He’s going to come soon, and he wants to be inside her when he does it. 

But the girl flashes through his head. The girl and her idiot father. Brienne’s family.

Brienne was the best thing in his life, the one thing he hadn’t managed to ruin. Until now. Jaime doesn’t care about her husband. She wouldn’t have come if that guy loved her half as much as she deserves. But the kid. The kid doesn’t deserve him waltzing in and fire-bombing her life. He really is fucked up. Jaime already knew that, but it’s a bitter pill to realize he had by no means hit bottom when he walked out on his life.

“Jaime?” There’s a little line between her brows, concern in her eyes, and a hint of her old insecurity. 

This is going to hurt, but he does it anyway. Jaime pulls away as best he can, folding himself into the corner of the bunk. “I can’t.”

* * *

  
  
The upper deck of the observation car is blessedly empty. It must be beautiful during the day, the sweeping green of the Riverlands rolling by, but right now there’s nothing but black. That suits her mood just fine. 

Brienne turns in her chair, not keen on staring at her own reflection in the windows, and tucks her feet under herself in the chair. She left without her shoes, her wallet, her phone. At least she grabbed her pants. Wrestling them on in front of a porter in the corridor was not her finest moment. 

The porter tried to ask if she was okay. Brienne is not okay, but not in the way that he means. 

She’s an idiot. Of course Jaime didn’t want to fuck her. He needed an escape for some reason, and he knew, even after a whole decade had passed, that she would come. Because Brienne has always been a fool for a pretty face, especially his. 

Maybe hiding here long enough will burn away some of her humiliation, let its stain fade from her skin. If she’s lucky Jaime will leave her room and she can slink back without running into him. 

But she’s never been particularly lucky. Other people find pennies on the sidewalk; she’s the one stepping in fresh dogshit. Not nearly enough time passes before she hears footsteps ascending the stairs to her hideaway. It’s Jaime, of course it is. 

He’s holding her phone as he comes into view. His hair’s a mess, probably from her hands, and his lips are red from her mouth. 

Brienne doesn’t say a word, just watches as he takes a seat beside hers. He keeps turning her phone over in his hands. She hates that case, kept hoping it would break, even dropped her phone a few times to encourage it. Hyle bought it and it’s covered in glitter and sequins and it’s pink. It’s quite possibly the least Brienne case he could have bought. She’s always suspected he bought it, along with her card, right before arriving home on her birthday. It was still “wrapped” in the grocery sack. At least that year he remembered. Probably got a social media reminder. 

Jaime presses the button and her screen lights up. “You’re married,” he says with an air of weary patience that raises her hackles.

“Since when does that matter to you?” she snaps, instantly on the defensive. 

At least he has the good grace to look away, abashed. He knows how much she despises infidelity only because they used to argue about his kissing cousin, who was already engaged to Robert Baratheon but hadn’t given up sleeping with Jaime. Looking back, the infidelity was the least fucked up part of that situation.

“There weren’t children involved then,” he counters. 

Oh. Of course. He would think that. Brienne reaches out and takes the phone, opens her photos and pulls up one of Alys making her typical surly expression. She holds the screen up to him. “This is my stepdaughter. Hyle got saddled with her when his ex abandoned her, and he needed a mom for her. We got married three months after our first date. I had no idea Alys even existed until the wedding.” She tucks the phone away. 

“But you’ve been raising her.” Jaime still seems pained by Alys’s existence, like he’s broken up a happy family by roping her into this madcap scheme. He hasn’t. 

“She calls me Mommy Dearest.” Brienne really wants another drink, just talking about Alys calls for wine, and lots of it. She expected to grow to love Alys over the years. She never did. Sometimes she felt like a monster because of it. 

Jaime winces, but doesn’t say anything. 

“Is that all?” Brienne prods. “I mean,  _ you  _ texted  _ me. _ What did you think was going to happen?” 

* * *

  
  


He never really pictured the train. He didn’t picture Riverrun or the drafty castle room they’d once stayed in. He didn’t remember Winterfell, and the picturesquely snowy campus that wasn’t quite so lovely when your feet were sodden frozen blocks and your nostrils stuck together in the cold. 

Jaime thought of her eyes, dark blue and framed with lashes so pale he’d never noticed them until he was close enough to brush his lips across them. He thought of the way her freckles multiplied in the spring, and her impossibly long legs wrapped around him. He thought of her shy smiles and her quiet confidence in him, the softness and vulnerability she showed to so few, and he desperately missed feeling like a man worthy of her affection. 

“I thought I’d get a few days of your time, until the end of the line. Then you’d remember all the reasons we hadn’t spoken in ten years, and you’d go back to your life.” He tries to play it off, light and breezy. He fails.

They didn't end well. As graduation approached and his father planned his future with no input from Jaime, Brienne grew more and more distant. When she decided to stay and do her post-grad studies at Winterfell, thousands of miles from his new Lanniscorp job in King’s Landing, it felt like a betrayal. He was cold, in the end, punishing her for not choosing him. Years passed before he realized he never asked her to come with him. 

“We weren’t the best at talking,” she concedes. Actions always spoke louder with them. Like hopping a train with no explanation. Brienne cocks her head to the side and regards him curiously. “Why haven’t we spoken in ten years? I always wondered why you didn’t answer when I asked you to run.” 

Jaime nearly chokes on his tongue. “What? When?” 

Her brow furrows. “Five years ago.”

“Five years…” His book was number one and he still actually thought that meant something about him. “I was on a book tour then. With Cersei.” The facade of her happy marriage lasted less than a year, and then she showed up on Jaime’s doorstep in a trench coat with nothing beneath it. A total cliche, but he was lonely and spending far too much time in his father’s office, being berated for not living up to expectations. They were good for a while, especially during that tour. She loved the crowds, the travel, the freedom from the daily grind of catering to Robert’s ego. And he was happy too. His father thought Jaime had finally embraced the Lannister way, preaching to his readers to ruthlessly put themselves first in pursuit of their goals. 

The truth was that Cersei had fed him the idea, edited the manuscript, and later pitched the TED talk as a way to promote the book. She actually believed what they were selling. He thought it was ridiculous but harmless. 

“You went back to her,” Brienne says, but the disappointment is clear. The judgment. 

“Yeah.” It’s a relief to admit it, to have someone he can be honest with again. Brienne walked into their relationship with her eyes open. After Jaime got drunk one night and started jealously ranting about Robert, there was no point in pretending he wasn’t fucking his cousin. Even when they broke up, Brienne was careful not to speak against Cersei, like she knew their break was only temporary. Even after Jaime and Brienne got together, she avoided the topic of Cersei. 

“Well, I guess I know why you didn’t answer then,” she says quietly. 

“I didn’t see your message,” he insists, as if it matters now. “Why did you…”

Brienne looks away, her gaze caught by their reflections in the glass. “It doesn’t matter now. Why did you text me?”

His stricken expression is dark and distorted in the window. His throat feels tight. “We sell meet and greets at big speaking engagements. Before the last one, a fan confided that he’d killed his business partner because of my book. I got on stage after that and I just froze. Ran off, got drunk, woke up and texted you.” 

Brienne looks horrified, as well she might. There’s something monstrous about having that kind of power over people, inspiring that much fervor. And then her eyes narrow. “You have a lot of nerve being upset that I’m married when you’re with her.” 

Jaime forces himself to look at her. The wavering reflection isn’t enough. Even if she hates him, he needs to see her eyes. “I haven’t touched her in almost a year. We’re just business partners.”

They fell apart slowly, and then all at once. Cersei pretended nothing had changed, but he felt it. She never smiled at Jaime anymore, only for the press and the fans. She bought his compliance with her body when it suited her, and punished him with the lack of it when he balked. But the final straw was when he tried to surprise her by returning early from a trip to visit his brother. He surprised her all right, in bed with another man. 

“I haven’t slept with my husband in a year,” Brienne says quietly. “He goes out with the boys a few nights a month and comes back freshly showered, like that’s normal coming home from a bar.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaime says, but he wants to find this man and choke the life out of him. It’s not a new thought. He used to fantasize about murdering Robert often enough to have decided how to do it. But he never did. Brienne’s husband does bring back that urge, though.

She smiles stiffly and shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t have to touch him.”

Jaime can’t quite wrap his mind around Brienne accepting such a grim existence. She looks perfect to him, more herself than in her youth, but he sees the strain in her eyes and the set of her mouth. The lack of a pale line where her wedding ring should be makes him wonder how often she goes without it. 

“Did you come here for a revenge fuck?” he finally asks. 

Brienne laughs. “It crossed my mind, not gonna lie. But no. We had fun together, didn’t we? I’m not remembering it better than it was?” 

“We did have fun,” he concedes.

“When we weren’t fighting.” She’s teasing, and the sparkle in her eyes is irresistable. Her husband is a fool.

“Oh, I don’t know. The making up was fun.” Once after a fight he painted her body with honey and licked off as much as he could before making love to her. Her sheets were ruined, but he still thought of her when he tasted honey years later.

Brienne shifts in her chair, bringing long legs down to rest her bare feet on the floor, no longer curled up like a hedgehog. “Are we fighting?” she asks, her voice huskier than it was a moment ago.

“Making up, I hope.” Jaime offers her his best smoldering smile, teeth digging into his lower lip in a way he knows used to turn her on. 

Brienne holds up her phone again, but doesn’t turn on the screen. “Is this still a problem?” 

“No.” He shakes his head to emphasize it, and then impulsively falls to his knees on the floor in front of her. He runs his hands up her legs, feeling the slight tremble in her thighs, and pushes up to kiss her. 

Brienne’s lips meet his with the same fierceness as earlier, and less reserve. One hand slides to the back of her neck, and his other slides up her thigh to tease between her legs. She moans into the kiss, and he is suddenly and painfully hard trapped in his jeans. Maybe they can just finish what they started right here. This gallery is theirs, and at this hour no one else is likely to find them. 

But Brienne pulls away, gasping. She stands, offering him help up. 

“You getting shy, Tarth?” he growls. They certainly fucked often enough in libraries, in dorm common rooms, once in a bathroom at a party. Jaime is seriously considering just yanking down her leggings and licking her right here. 

“I don’t want to be quiet.” Her eyes are dark, her lips swollen and red, and he knows very well that the flush in her cheeks will be all over her neck and chest when he gets her naked. 

They laugh as they run through the cars.

* * *

It isn’t the same as when they were young. Much as she might like to pretend that nothing has changed, the rasp of stubble where once Jaime had sported a soft beard is reminder enough. She’s different, too. Brienne isn’t the innocent who came to his bed almost entirely untouched, embarrassingly like a pristine highborn maiden of the dragon age. She’s not precisely worldly now, but she knows what she wants. The train will reach Riverrun tomorrow. There’s no time to take things slow. She needs to remember how it felt to bask in the glow of Jaime’s affection, to not feel so damn small and trapped all the time. 

Clothes come off so fast she hears stitches pop, but that doesn’t matter, nothing matters, just getting her mouth on his skin. He tastes familiar, salty and clean. She dips her tongue into the hollow at the base of his throat and he growls, mutters, “Fuck, Brienne,” with his hand in her hair. 

His other hand goes to her breast, kneading and plucking her nipple while he slides his leg between hers, grinding his thigh against her cunt. She’s already wet, has been for a while. Could he smell her, earlier, through her leggings? It doesn’t bother her the way it once did, Jaime knowing what he does to her. 

Brienne shoves him back, and Jaime bounces a little as he hits the narrow bunk. He’s laughing when she climbs into his lap, kisses him greedily, revels in the feel of his strong hands cupping her ass and dragging her over his hard cock. 

“Are you sure?” he asks in between kisses. 

She’s never been so damn sure of anything in her life. “Don’t stop.” She’s dizzy with need now, arms wrapped around him, soaking in the warmth and strength of his body. 

Jaime looks up at her with the same fierce tenderness that stole her heart more than a decade ago. “I won’t let you go again,” he whispers, fingers digging into her flesh a little painfully, but she’ll take the pain over his absence. 

She rocks against him, slowly, torturing them both. “I don’t want to go back.” It’s impossible, the world doesn’t work that way. She can’t just walk out on her life and never look back. But it doesn’t feel impossible in Jaime’s arms.

“I don’t want to go back either,” he agrees, his smile lighting up his face. 

It makes Brienne feel warm, and safe in ways that make no sense at all. She slips a hand between them and grips him, hot and hard in her hand. His eyelashes flutter and a soft groan escapes his lips as she shifts to line him up with her entrance. Jaime doesn’t stop her. Reckless. They often were, holding tight to the moment and never daring to look too far ahead. 

Brienne slides down, and the world tilts. Jaime is inside her. He has been before, so many times, but it still takes her breath away. She touches his hair, his shoulders, tries to anchor herself here in this moment, no worries, no fears, no tomorrow. Just now. Her heart is beating so hard she can feel its rapid thrum in her chest, in her ears, between her legs. Even her fingertips seem to pulse, but maybe that’s him. Brienne slides a hand over his throat, her thumb finding his heartbeat racing under his skin. 

His eyes are so close she can see the ring of gold around the sliver of green surrounding his dark pupils. His lips surge against hers again, the kiss deep, desperate, needy. Jaime doesn’t thrust, doesn’t try to move her. His fingertips trace a line from her jaw down her throat, into the valley between her breasts, down her belly, dipping into her navel, and all the way down to her clit. He circles it slowly, gently, building a rhythm until her hips start to move, riding him slow and deep. 

When they first started fucking it was all over quickly, a desperate rush, so eager to find their pleasure. They were young, he could go again within minutes, and they often did. But as time passed, this was her favorite, the intimacy of holding each other, watching his reactions from up close, sharing breath.

“I wanted to take you with me,” he confesses after a while, his lips brushing the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Brienne turns her head to press her lips to his ear. “I wanted to go.” She wanted to wake up with him every day and fall asleep beside him every night. But his family was frankly terrifying, and she had no desire to give up her career to follow a man around, even Jaime. Besides, he never asked.

But that was a long time ago. Brienne starts to move faster, her thighs burning with the effort. His moans and the sound of her ass slapping against his thighs on each down thrust fill the tiny room. Jaime presses a kiss between her breasts, licks a stripe up her chest as she leans back, changing the angle. It’s as good as she remembers, better even, and she’s matching him moan for moan, louder as he hits somewhere new inside her. 

Jaime slides his hand between them again, running his thumb over her clit in the same rhythm that she’s fucking him. “Come for me,” he growls, wrapping his other arm around her waist for leverage and finally starting to thrust back. 

Jaime finds his rhythm quickly, meeting her thrusts with his, moving harder and faster. She’s on fire, and he throws fuel on the flames, leaning forward to take her nipple into his mouth. He’s watching, the bastard, but Brienne can barely breathe but she still begs him to fuck her harder. She can take it, she wants to feel him tomorrow, wants evidence this was real. Thirty-two year olds don’t run away from home to fuck an ex-boyfriend on a moving train. That would be crazy.

Crazy feels amazing. It’s too much, so much hotter and more intense than she remembers, like the sun breaking through after a storm. Jaime is beautiful like this, unraveling before her, panting and staring at her with dark eyes and the filthiest words falling from his tongue. He promises to fuck her with that tongue next, right before she goes over the edge.

* * *

  
The porter has to knock for five solid minutes before they wake up. They know because he tells them, very tersely, as he reminds them that the sleeping cars must be cleared an hour before the train pulls into Riverrun’s station.

Jaime barely remembers getting dressed, packing their minimal bags, and leaving the tiny room. It smells like sex, which still seems to embarrass Brienne.

“Should I leave money for the chair?” she murmurs as they’re packing up. 

Jaime glances at the sad little jumpseat hanging precariously by one hinge. It’s not their fault it couldn’t hold two people’s weight. They got fairly creative after their first round, when things started to feel serious and Jaime felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t ask her what all of this meant. Fucking is a hell of a lot easier than talking.

And if it means nothing, if she leaves at Riverrun…. Hell, if she leaves him at Winterfell he’s not actually sure he’ll get over her. He might become one of those sad, pining assholes who never stops talking about the one who got away. And that is too horrible to contemplate.

Jaime yanks out his wallet and drops a hundred dragon note on the chair. “There. Don’t worry about it,” he says, and grabs her hand before walking out the door. 

They nearly walk right into the angry porter. Brienne apologizes but Jaime just keeps walking. They find a cozy spot in a viewing car and watch the green countryside rolling by, sheep and cows grazing along the tracks and it’s so ridiculously bucolic and lovely. It’s better with Brienne sitting here, snuggled into his side. With her by his side he doesn’t even mind the uncertainty they’re facing. He already placed a discreet text to his father’s private investigator and another to his attorney, but that unpleasantness can wait a few hours.

Jaime is feeling more confident by the time the train pulls into the station. Hand in hand, they step out onto the platform, diesel fumes mingling with the fresh green scent of the Riverlands.

“Do you remember that cab driver?” Brienne asks as he checks the departures board. 

There’s a train going north now, but if there’s a later train there’s a room at Riverrun Castle that Jaime would love to revisit. “The one who told us about the siege? And Lady Stoneheart and the soldiers hanging from the trees?” He laughs. 

“I thought we were going to be butchered in our sleep!” Brienne reminds him, laughing too. It was a good trip, the last one they took together. The memory isn’t as sharp now that he has her again. 

So many trains, bound for Casterly Rock and Seagard and White Harbor and points south.  


“Jaime.” The voice rings out clear as a bell above the noise of footsteps and rolling carts and chatter. 

He freezes, praying to the Father that he’s misheard. No. Not now. Not here.

They both turn to look over their shoulders. And there she is, Cersei Lannister, all in black with heavy gold cuffs on her wrists. Between her scowl and her severely cut hair, she looks more like a raven than a lion.

Brienne squeezes Jaime’s hand, warm firm pressure and her fingers twined with his. 

That’s all he needs. Jaime steps closer and sets his lips to her ear. “Run.”

Brienne looks away from Cersei, her wide blue eyes focusing on Jaime before she smiles. “Run,” she echoes.

He moves first, tugging Brienne along with him, down the platform and away from Cersei. Jaime points, and she follows his gaze: a Winterfell train about to depart. Riverrun will have to wait. The North beckons. 

Behind them, Cersei is spitting her venom for all the station to hear, vowing revenge and causing a scene. 

He and Brienne weave between passengers and luggage carts, Brienne apologizing every time they knock into someone. They storm up the steps to the last train car just as the doors start to close. 

They don’t look back.


End file.
